Modi-Morrison virtual meet to break new ground in Ind-Aus cooperation: Barry O’Farrell

Sandeep Dikshit

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, June 1

The first ever India-Australia Leaders’ Virtual Summit, featuring Prime Ministers Narendra Modi and Scott Morrison, will break new ground in cooperation in defence and rare minerals, Australian High Commissioner to India Barry O’Farrell said here on Monday.

The meeting is scheduled to be held on Thursday.

The willingness of both sides to sign a logistic sharing access agreement that will give easier access to each other’s military facilities is well known. Australia is also ready to open talks on the supply of seven critical minerals to India that will reduce its dependence on China.

This step will also help Australia emerge from its over-dependency on exporting a few select commodities in huge quantities to China.

A strategy paper by Canberra on stepping up ties with India had suggested that Australia should be expanding the services relationship and develop a resources relationship that goes beyond raw materials exports. The critical materials sector would provide an ideal opportunity.

About 30 raw minerals are said to be critical inputs for 21st century technologies, such as smart-phones, e-vehicles and life-saving health equipment and electric vehicles.  

India has identified lithium, cobalt, nickel and rare earth metals as key to its future industrial plans and Australia is richly endowed with all of them.

Australia’s trade with India has so far focused on metallurgical coal and gold.

Speaking to the media via video-conference, the envoy said India-Australia ties were at a “historic high” with both committed to a free and prosperous Indo-Pacific.

While the Modi hug will be missing in the virtual summit, O’Farrell hoped that the interaction would lead to bilateral ties scaling greater heights.

“Strengthening relations at this time among like-minded leaders can only be the future of the world,” he observed.

The Australian envoy also welcomed the US and the UK proposals to expand the G7 grouping to include Australia and India and felt the Quad grouping of US-India-Australia-Japan has been a useful form for like-minded democracies to share perspectives on the Covid crisis.

The envoy though did not touch on India signing the RCEP, a 16-nation pact which would have opened up Australian dairy exports to India. 

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